'Fowl' Crime: 17 Illegal Birds Rescued From Forest Hills Yard

FOREST HILLS, QUEENS — John Di Leonardo couldn't talk for long: he was giving one of his 16 sick ducks a foot bath.

"They have bumblefoot, which is basically a staph infection," said the president of Long Island Orchestrating for Nature (LION), a waterfowl rescue organization. "We'll treat it with antibiotics and soak their feet a few times a day."

The Muscovy ducks, and one Embden goose, were rescued this week from the backyard of a Forest Hills home where they'd been kept illegally for years, Di Leonardo told Patch.

Patches of ice and moldy bagels, which the owners used for feed, filled the area where the animals were being kept, said Di Leonardo, noting that the birds congregated on a single piece of cardboard to keep their feet warm in absence of adequate shelter.

Neighbors had reported the birds — of which there were 27 total — to 311 and the NYPD for months, he said, but little came of those efforts until a health inspector came to the house and told the residents that they were breaking the city's health code.

Facing 10 days to get rid of the birds, Di Leonardo showed up at the Forest Hills house and tried to convince the owners to surrender them.

After some reasoning he got 5, and then another 12.

"We always try to reason with people from an educational standpoint," Di Leonardo said. "Show people that these animals are thinking, feeling persons just like you or I. If I'm cold, they're cold."

Although 10 of the birds disappeared — the owners reportedly said they might sell them for slaughter — the others are at a LION shelter in Riverhead, where they're getting medical care.

Once healthy, the birds will be placed for adoption at "homes or sanctuaries that can take care of them," Di Leonardo said, but he suspects that won't happen immediately.

"Some of them are in really bad shape, so they'll be recovering with us for a while," he said.